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You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.

George Orwell

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George Orwell
Age: 46 †
Born: 1903
Born: June 25
Died: 1950
Died: January 21
Autobiographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Poet
Screenwriter
War Correspondent
Writer
Eric Blair
P. S. Burton
Eric Arthur Blair
John Freeman
Squeeze
Hollow
Fill
Empty
Shall

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In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.
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One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death.
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Always eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or bed- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters in your skull.
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The major problem of our time is the decay in the belief in personal immortality, and it cannot be dealt with while the average human being is either drudging like an ox or shivering in fear of the secret police... How right [the working classes] are to realize that the belly comes before the soul, not in the scale of values but in point of time!
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Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
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You're only a rebel from the waist downwards,' he told her.
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The common people, on the whole, are still living in the world of absolute good and evil from which the intellectuals have long since escaped.
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I have no wish to take life, not even human life
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The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule , between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world : that is evil or you can overthrow them by war , which is also evil. There is no other choice before you, and whichever you choose you will not come out with clean hands.
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I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written.
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One must choose between God and Man, and all radicals and progressives, from the mildest liberal to the most extreme anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.
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The primary aim of modern warfare ... is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.
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Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.
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But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
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The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug - that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes.
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Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
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In any form of art designed to appeal to large numbers of people,...[t]he rich man is usually 'bad', and his machinations are invariably frustrated.: 'Good poor man defeats bad rich man' is an accepted formula.
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The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism.
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A plongeur is a slave, and a wasted slave, doing stupid and largely unnecessary work. He is kept at work, ultimately, because of a vague feeling that he would be dangerous if he had leisure. And educated people, who should be on his side, acquiesce in the process, because they know nothing about him and consequently are afraid of him.
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Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges.
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